Using the Vector jumpbox

The Vector PmWiki skin (which you can see in use on this wiki) has a very useful, but not so obvious, feature—the jumpbox.

What is this “jumpbox”?

It’s the search box at the top right of the page, next to the page actions—where it says “Search OborWiki” in this picture:

That’s not just a search field??

Nope! Sure, you can use it to search the wiki. But what happens if you put in a page name into the jumpbox, and hit Enter? Why, you jump right to that page!

Do I have to put in a page name in the full Group.Name format?

Not necessarily! Here’s how it works:

If you put in a full name (in Group.Name or Group/Name format), you jump right to that page.

If you put in a page name without a group name in front of it, then Vector attempts to infer the page you want, by using the MakePageName() PmWiki function.On OborWiki, this means that the following happens:

The wiki checks to see if there’s a page by that name in the current group (i.e. the group that the current page—the one you’re on—is in); if there is, then you jump to there

If not, then the wiki checks to see if there’s a page by that name in the default group (usually, that is Main/); if there is, then you jump to there

If neither of those pages exist, then Vector behaves as if you had simply searched for that string

(If you are a wiki admin, you can alter this behavior by modifying the $PagePathFmt array, in your config.php file.1

But what if I really do want to search for the name of a page that exists, and do not want to jump to it?

Just go to the actual Search page (either hit Enter with the jumpbox left blank, or click the magnifying-glass button), and do your search there.

So is jumping right to a page all the jumpbox does (besides searching)? Or is there more?

There is more! If you prepend the name of a page with one of the Vector jumpbox shortcut characters, then instead of just jumping to that page, you’re taken to an alternate view (action) of that page. Here are the shortcuts:

Prefix

Action

#

Attach (upload action)

$

Source (source action)

%

History (diff action)

^

Edit (edit action)

&

Attributes (attr action)

(So, for, instance, entering ^GroupHeader into the jumpbox means “edit the GroupHeader page of the current group”, while entering %Site.StyleSheet into the jumpbox means “view the edit history of the Site.StyleSheet page”.)